


Wintersparks

by Elleth



Series: Femslash Yuletide Ficlets [2]
Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: F/F, Femslash, Femslash Yuletide, Ficlet Collection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-06
Updated: 2014-12-06
Packaged: 2018-02-28 08:43:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2725982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elleth/pseuds/Elleth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A ficlet collection for <a href="http://femslashyuletide.tumblr.com/">Femslash Yuletide</a> 2014.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Turuhalmë Garland

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Day One: Trimming the Tree:** Aerin visits Morwen and Niënor, bearing both gifts and demands.

Through Morwen’s broken garth-fence and past the red-berried holly bush, Aerin comes in thick, green, fur-lined wool, and on a leather string she pulls a sled piled high with food and firewood. While she shakes the snow off her shoulders and knocks, Morwen sits by the window and debates - let her in and have some precious heat escape, or send her and her charity gifts away - but Niënor flies for the door and yanks it open. A gust of wind sweeps in, bearing snowflakes all the way into the hall.

Morwen draws the green cloth shawl closer around her shoulders. That, too, is a gift of Aerin’s, threadbare after five years of nigh-constant wear. She rises eventually, when the runners of the sled scratch over the wooden floor, despite the ache work and weather put in her bones, and sits Aerin into the guest-chair by the hearth with little ceremony except the ordinary, the curt question: “How much time?”

For what they have together is precious, and Morwen rations it the same way she rations all of Aerin’s gifts, as much as it rankles to rely on them. Aerin, with her gold-red hair, always brings some warmth with her that Morwen, despite her grief and widowhood, has begun to crave.

"Plenty," Aerin says, touching frozen fingers to Morwen’s cheek. "Lorgan summoned Brodda and his band of vultures to a feast and council. I feigned an illness, and he knows that even if I lied, running in winter won’t get me far, so he let me stay. We have three days."

Morwen doesn’t smile, but she breathes on Aerin’s fingers to warm them, and sees Aerin’s mien relax, mirroring her own. Shifting Niënor - who has since pilfered an apple from Aerin’s load of gifts and crams it against her mouth with both hands - up onto her hip, she says, “Aerin… you are of course welcome to stay here if you wish, for that time.”

"Only," Aerin says with a look at Niënor, "if we teach her how to trim the holly and weave a Turuhalmë garland."

"We won’t have wood for the log-drawing; there will be no need for decorations," Morwen objects. "She will sting herself."

"Niënor ought to learn our traditions, and her fingers will heal," Aerin says. "I will see to the log."

Morwen has never been one for the festivities. They have always been Húrin’s proclivity, but for the sake of their children she relented while times were good, before the war. Now, with Lalaith in the cold earth and Túrin gone, and Niënor, unhappy last-born, used to nothing except the silent observance of the longest night, she’s reluctant to allow something brighter, for fear that that, too, will be taken away.

She knows that Aerin knows this, also, that her condition would be futile if Morwen refused to let Aerin remain, refused to let her warm body sleep in Húrin’s place as so seldom happens, refused a comfort for herself that is both undeserved and unfaithful.

Aerin also knows that Morwen is worn thin, and as reluctant to refuse as she is to accept.

"Very well," Morwen says, relenting after a long pause, and presses her lips to Aerin’s warming fingers, closing her eyes.


	2. Míriel's Song

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Day Two: Holiday Traditions:** Uinen has saved Tar-Míriel from the Downfall of Númenor, but she insists to return to the site of her erstwhile island once more. AU.

"Erukyermë, Erulaitalë and Eruhantalë, yes, but Meneltarma is lost, and there is no way now to reach the summit for the Three Prayers, nor do I have an offering to make - and it is not the time for one. Above the waves it is winter, so the dolphins tell," Míriel said. Uinen, with a sigh that made her shudder, beat her tail and slid around her, webbed fingers ghosting over her shoulders, pressing a kiss to her jawline.

"There is Mettarë of old, the end of the old year," Míriel continued. "I would pay my tributes to that at least, to Númenor that was before the Downfall and before her Sinking. _Írima yë Númenor._ A song, at least a song such as we sang then, expressing a wish, a hope, some blessing of the future… I am her queen, or was. It is my duty.”

When Uinen spoke, her voice resonated gently in Míriel’s head: “ _Vanwa yë Númenor._ There is no approaching the area; the waters were devastated and there now is a fissure through the middle of the ocean where your island lay. You know this.”

"I do not remember it. Not even when you rescued me, nor when you gave me this form."

Uinen was silent. Míriel knew that she was often called to restrain Ossë when he raged upon the waters, wrecking such ships as still were upon the sea, but failed when she was faced with grief like becalmed water.

"You Child of Men, you bewilder me. Then let us go, so that you may see."

A kindly current, no doubt at Uinen’s call, sped them toward the fissure where Númenor had been, but long before they reached it, the water grew unpleasantly warm and prickled upon Míriel’s skin. The sea-floor, half lost to sight in the dirty water, had long ceased to be a field of corals, instead the shattered, twisted stone was littered with all matter of things, debris swept into the sea by the waves that had claimed the island. Beating her tail hard despite her misgivings and the numbness that surfaced anew at being faced with the wreckage, Míriel dove nearer to the bottom, so she could see: There the shards of a painted vase, an octopus curling among seaweed, there the beads of a necklace tangled amid the bare branches of a broken tree.

“ _Vanwa yë Númenor_ ,” Uinen repeated, coming to her side and speaking as gently as before. “Will you go further?”

Míriel hesitated, hovering in the water beside Uinen. “No,” she said at last, softly chanting the verse of an old song that had been known across the island, and sung even when Quenya had long been outlawed. “ _Írima yë Númenor, nan úye sére indo-ninya símen, ullumë._ ”

It was not a new-year’s song, but there was truth in it, so it would suffice - and she saw Uinen’s face shift into a vague smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title references [Fíriel’s Song](http://folk.uib.no/hnohf/firiel.htm), which occurs in the story, and is something of a bad pun insofar that the original Míriel, after her death, was also called Fíriel by some. A translation of most Quenya phrases can be found at the link; vanwa means “lost”. The AU is based on some glorious Legendarium Ladies’ April posts like [this](http://alackofghosts.tumblr.com/post/81816304218/aaand-an-uinen-and-tar-miriel-before-i-go-to-bed) and [this](http://welcometolotr.tumblr.com/post/81880724372/uinen-and-tar-miriel-for-legendariumladiesapril).


	3. Thaw

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Day Three: Chimney:** After weaving the holly garland, Morwen, Aerin and Niënor come in from the cold. A continuation of my Day One ficlet.

"And there will be tale-telling, and then we’ll burn the log and then and — the chimney will be puttering!” Niënor’s little voice hitches with breathless excitement and she hops backward when Morwen passes, carrying inside one end of the holly garland she and Aerin have wrought, stepping around the high-laden sled as though it were nothing but an unwelcome impediment.

"Sputtering, love," says Aerin with a soft laugh while she fixes her end of the garland above the banked hearth with Morwen’s dried herbs (most of them harmless, for medicine, tea or seasoning, but slightly apart some to preserve the moniker of witch-wife that the Easterlings have given her; nightshade and foxglove and lily of the valley, even dried toadstool, never to be used). Morwen’s lips press into a thin line, but she says nothing, still displeased that Niënor refused to continue working on the garland after pricking her finger just once. It’s owing to Aerin’s intervention that the afternoon did not end in tears.

The garland is beautiful, deep green and glossy, studded with clusters of red berries, a handful of pinecones and even a few ears of corn interwoven into the mesh, and when Morwen stands back to appraise their work, she leans into Aerin’s hold, into the arm around her hips, nuzzling her cold nose against the pulse-point of Aerin’s throat.

Aerin’s breath catches, but she allows the touch a moment longer, then saying to Niënor, bright-eyed and watching them with cold-reddened cheeks, “It is not Turuhalmë yet, but shall we see if we can make the chimney blaze already?”

Morwen makes a noise of protest, but Aerin shushes her gently, before she can warn about wasted necessities and the need for frugality, instead nudging her toward the pile of firewood on the sled.

"We have enough, we have enough. The warmth will do you well." 

And indeed, Morwen’s frozen glowering thaws - hesitantly, and only a little, but that, too, is enough - and she gives Aerin a thin-lipped smile.


	4. Stars and Snowflakes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Day Four: Sledding** and **Day Five: Greeting Cards:** Tauriel travels to Dale for Sigrid’s coming-of-age festivities. (No movie spoilers - it’s all conjecture and wishful thinking.)

When the Lady of Dale sends out a flurry of messages inviting neighbouring and allied realms to celebrate her coming-of-age, Tauriel almost refuses to attend. They have been exchanging letters whenever convenient messengers were hailing in either direction, first out of concern for one another, and then because they came to depend on it, even exchanging greetings at the turns of the seasons.

So six years have slipped by since the Five Armies - but even with snow blanketing the scars the battle has wrought, reluctance boils within her to look at the site of slaughter again, or to meet Sigrid. It takes Maltheniel’s persuasion (for when matters concern the heart, Thranduil defers to his wife’s authority) for Tauriel to recognize there is no feasible refusal - the orcs are diminished, the spiders dormant, the threats to the forest so minimal that they do not justify her staying.

At the feast she picks at the morsels before her and merely sips at the fine Dorwinion sit before her, even as Sigrid sits, resplendent in blue silk, in the seat of honour at her father’s side. Tauriel’s mind draws inward and back to the Laketown girl defending her family from the orcs, when it does not dwell on Erebor that looms all-too-near through the windows of the hall. She stays in her seat when the formalities cease and the musicians play up a dancing tune, fair enough, but the festivities have been enough to grate on Tauriel’s nerves and have nearly driven her into the blistering cold twice over already. She finally goes when Sigrid winds her way through the dancers and toward the tables.

Outside, Tauriel stands before the entrance of the hall above the twilight-wreathed town, much like one of the drawings that Sigrid sent her, and realizes that this must have been the precise vantage point she took to watch the kindling hour. It is oddly festive to see fires and candles flicker to life in the snow-covered houses below, reflected shivering in the Celduin rushing through the town below toward the Long Lake.

Behind her, the door creaks, a gust of warm air and noise wrap around her, and dissipate, both an annoyance and a brief comfort in the cold.

"Now, this isn’t a way to spend my birthday," Sigrid’s voice announces behind her, and Tauriel slowly turns.

"Is it not? Then you should go back inside. You are the guest of honour, after all." Tauriel’s voice sounds a little gruff, not quite the tone she’d use with a subordinate soldier, but close enough for some hurt to flicker into Sigrid’s grey eyes, but she has grown graceful enough to shut it away - no doubt learned during countless trade agreements, negotiations, and ruling matters at her father’s side. Sigrid doesn’t speak yet.

"You are very young to me - my people would not be half to adulthood at your age, much less accounted fully grown," she adds, softer, and does not know quite where to look.

"And?" asks Sigrid, raising an eyebrow. "I am no Elf, and it would not be so odd if I the lover I were to take were older - of course they would see it the other way around, but if you’ve taught me anything, then it’s that the stars shine the brightest on those that dare to walk among them, not those that wait for them to fall down."

"You still seem like a child to me," Tauriel objects. "And I do not know if that will change while you live. When Dale was built I was already more than two centuries old by your reckoning; twenty-one of your years are the time one of my arrows takes to find its target."

"You Elves are still so strange. I don’t think I understand quite how strange," Sigrid answers, bravely keeping her voice under control. "But you spelled out plain as day what you’re scared of. Three or four arrows and I’ll be gone if something else doesn’t take me first, that must be…" she shrugs her shoulders. "It’s not a way of thinking I’m used to, measuring it all out beforehand, and it’s odd because you always seem so unafraid. But you came - doesn’t that mean you’re already in too deep?"

Tauriel snorts. “Perhaps.”

"I’ll take that over a no," comes the reply. "And since I’m such a child to you, and it’s my birthday, and it’s customary for children to get their wishes fulfilled, especially a princess who, strictly speaking, outranks you," and her voice becomes so mock-petulant that Tauriel can’t help laughing, "I order that you will go sledding with me."

"Sledding," Tauriel echoes.

"Sledding," Sigrid repeats. And it’s done as she decrees; a few minutes later she has brought a sturdy, dwarf-wrought sled and Tauriel finds herself pressing against Sigrid’s back, Sigrid’s open hair whipping around them both as they race down the slope behind the hall, over bumps and through snowdrifts that make Sigrid whoop and Tauriel’s teeth clack together - until the sled totters and tips and spills them, shrieking, into the snow.

Sigrid, who has come to lie beside Tauriel, tips herself up on an elbow and smiles down at her, and as she leans in, snowflakes like stars caught in her hair falling around them in a tangled curtain, Tauriel can’t find it in her to object to what follows.


End file.
